Poll: Racial Prejudice Has Risen Since 2008

(The Root) -- America is just as prejudiced as it was four years ago -- maybe a even a little bit more, says an Associated Press poll released recently.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since the United States elected its first black president, an Associated Press poll finds, as a slight majority of Americans now express prejudice toward blacks whether they recognize those feelings or not.

Those views could cost President Barack Obama votes as he tries for re-election, the survey found, though the effects are mitigated by some people's more favorable views of blacks.

Racial prejudice has increased slightly since 2008 whether those feelings were measured using questions that explicitly asked respondents about racist attitudes, or through an experimental test that measured implicit views toward race without asking questions about that topic directly.

In all, 51 percent of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 percent, up from 49 percent during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell.

I remember in 2008 when they announced that race may play a part in the election, and my absolute shock.

Let's be honest here: Things haven't gotten worse since 2008. What's happened is that many people have grown more comfortable expressing their prejudice since everyone was told how much things are so different now. Racism is over! America is a meritocracy! Affirmative action is a problem! So yeah, things seem worse, but in the end we're just being allowed to see what was underneath the surface all along.